Dealing with an "oldschool" DM

[Asmor]

Run the game you wish you could play.

Cheers, -- N

Just wanted to say that I find I do run the games I wish I could play, and that makes me sad because I never actually get to play them.

Back on topic, I think the OP has a bit of a "sense of entitlement" that needs to be dealt with as well. I agree from the description that the DM doesn't sound like he's doing everything perfectly, but it also sounds to me like the OP may have... a warped sense of the game, where the RAW are a lot more important than they actually are.

All that said... It sounds like you've already talked to your DM. If he's not changing, then you have to decide whether you'd rather continue playing in his game or not. Simple as that.

 

[kitsune9]

I have a slight dilemma. I'm currently in a 4e campaign but until we started this campaign, my DM hadn't played since 1st edition in high school. He doesn't seem to grasp the fact that 4e is simplified and that the rules are more "set in stone" than previous editions to ensure balance; he still seems to think that every rule in the game is a guideline that he can change as he sees fit.

This causes a lot of issues in our games because he's not balancing things properly. Here's a few examples:

• He doesn't balance encounters; we only have 4 PCs but he uses encounters as-written in the published adventures. He says that the math WotC uses is flawed because we easily deal with encouners designed for 5 PCs but this is because half the time he forgets creature's powers, gets them flat out wrong, and/or plays monsters as mindless AI.
• Not only does he not scale down encounters, he also cheats us on XP as he divides the encounter by 5, not 4. He thinks that when a 4e adventure says it's for "14th - 17th level" it means like 1st edition where the PCs can be between those levels, when in fact it means it's supposed to take us FROM 14th level TO 17th level. We're playing through Demon Queen's Enclave right now but we're only level 13, about to hit level 14.
• He skimps on treasure; I'm not sure exactly what the ratio should be but we seem to have slightly less powerful items than we should have at 13th level.
• My girlfriend recently said she wanted to play, so I made her a character at the same level as us; until I convinced him otherwise the DM was wanting her to start a level or two behind, and STILL not scale the encounters or scale her XP accordingly to have her catch up; I can't seem to find an exact rule that says what XP amount new PCs are supposed to start with. He keeps saying that we blast through encounters with 4 PCs so "even if she was at 2nd level you would be better off than you are now, since you'd have 5 PCs".

I really don't know how to deal with it; I have the 4e DMG myself and the stuff he says makes no sense at all to me, and IMO it's not how the game is designed to work; I've played 1st, 2nd, 3rd and now 4th edition of D&D. Sure, he's the DM, but IMO 4e supposed to be a lot more "these are rules, not guidelines" than previous editions were, because the game is intended to be balanced on core assumptions, or require DM interaction to bring things into balance. Once you start changing the core rules or things like that, you're breaking that balance, more so if you don't compensate for it like my DM seems to do.

Any advice on this situation?

Sounds like a crazy, un-rational DM to me.

 

[Fifth Element]

If you've already made your concerns known to the DM (hopefully in a more diplomatic way than your OP), you have to decide whether you want to keep playing in the campaign.

You can always try explaining your point of view again, again without being condescending or aggressive, and maybe he'll see what you're talking about. If not, you can leave or you can stick it out. Your choice.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I'm curious how many times you guys have lost characters?

If you are fighting 5 players worth of monsters with 4 underequipped and underleveled PCs all the time the answer should be "every combat". If thats not the answer then maybe the GM is doing something in the background to keep you guys alive.

So if thats the real story, a solution might be to tell the GM "Fix X, Y, and Z and then you don't have to do all that extra work trying to keep us alive."

DS

 

[Ariosto]

I don't know how statistically common this is, but my own "old school" experience is not much of the "blue bolts from heaven" sort. Indeed, the conviviality I have found in 4E sessions has been a sort of homecoming after after a long spell of encountering "rules lawyers"; the difference (and it is significant to me) is that the very civil discussions are concerned more with abstractions than with the imagined situation.

 

[Kez Darksun]

Just wanted to say that I find I do run the games I wish I could play, and that makes me sad because I never actually get to play them.

Back on topic, I think the OP has a bit of a "sense of entitlement" that needs to be dealt with as well. I agree from the description that the DM doesn't sound like he's doing everything perfectly, but it also sounds to me like the OP may have... a warped sense of the game, where the RAW are a lot more important than they actually are.

All that said... It sounds like you've already talked to your DM. If he's not changing, then you have to decide whether you'd rather continue playing in his game or not. Simple as that.

Could you elaborate on how the OP's points come across as having a bit of a sense of entitlement? I'm trying to see how you came to that conclusion from the information he gave, but I'm not seeing it for myself. To me, as a player, it sounds like he has valid concerns. Just to make sure its clear, I'm not trying to be sarcastic, just genuinely curious.

 

[Rechan]

You could send the url to this thread to your DM.

 

[Asmor]

Could you elaborate on how the OP's points come across as having a bit of a sense of entitlement? I'm trying to see how you came to that conclusion from the information he gave, but I'm not seeing it for myself. To me, as a player, it sounds like he has valid concerns.

Certainly.

He doesn't seem to grasp the fact that 4e is simplified and that the rules are more "set in stone" than previous editions to ensure balance; he still seems to think that every rule in the game is a guideline that he can change as he sees fit.

Rules are not set in stone and are always up to GM interpretation and fiat.

Not only does he not scale down encounters, he also cheats us on XP as he divides the encounter by 5, not 4.

Feels entitled to XP at the rate listed in the book.

He thinks that when a 4e adventure says it's for "14th - 17th level" it means like 1st edition where the PCs can be between those levels, when in fact it means it's supposed to take us FROM 14th level TO 17th level.

Not actually any entitlement here, but I'd just like to say I don't entirely agree with his premise (that 14-17 means you should start the adventure at level 14 rather than starting at anywhere from 14-17) and also I don't really see what this bit has to do with anything else. Seems totally irrelevant.

He skimps on treasure; I'm not sure exactly what the ratio should be but we seem to have slightly less powerful items than we should have at 13th level.

Feels entitled to treasure at the rate listed in the book.

Sure, he's the DM, but IMO 4e supposed to be a lot more "these are rules, not guidelines" than previous editions were

Again, not really an issue of entitlement here so much as I disagree with the assumption that 4e requires a more rigid interpretation of the rules than previous editions. In particular, I think 3rd edition suffers from that a lot more than 4th edition does.

I feel I should re-state that from what's been said, I do think there are issues with the GM. I'm merely explaining that, like most things in life, the story is not entirely one-sided and that there may be issues on both sides of the screen. Others in the thread have done a well-enough job of examining the DM, I just want to bring a bit of balance to the discussion.

 

[wayne62682]

I'm curious how many times you guys have lost characters?

If you are fighting 5 players worth of monsters with 4 underequipped and underleveled PCs all the time the answer should be "every combat". If thats not the answer then maybe the GM is doing something in the background to keep you guys alive.

So if thats the real story, a solution might be to tell the GM "Fix X, Y, and Z and then you don't have to do all that extra work trying to keep us alive."

DS

Never, but he always says how that means the adventures cannot POSSIBLY be balanced at 5 PCs, because we have 4 and do well, although most combats turn into meat grinders; in fact he basically said WotC's math is off because the adventures have to be balanced for 4, not 5. To my knowledge he's not changing anything; he doesn't really use tactics though, and he also seems to get upset with us for not engaging diplomatically in some encounters, but the thing is he's not giving us the opportunity; creatures act immediately hostile to us and he tells us to roll initiative, and then later he'll say "You could have avoided this fight" when he never presented any option to do anything except fighting!

Also FWIW I don't think it's "entitlement" to expect the rules of the game to be followed, especially in regards to XP and treasure which are the very basis of the game. The WotC published 4e adventures ARE designed to take you from one level to another, not for characters between a certain level (that's why it says "Designed to take PCs from x to y level") and this is mentioned because we're already a level behind, and the DM sees nothing wrong with not giving us the recommended XP amount because in his mind he's thinking that we can still handle the adventure because we're between 14th and 17th level, when we should be getting enough XP to get TO 17th level by the finish of it.

He's basically said that if he divided the XP by 4 (using encounters as-is) we would be higher than recommended - I mention that that's the whole POINT since we're facing encounters designed for 5 PCs, and in any event he's supposed to reduce the monsters for encounters to compensate for the fact that we only have 4 PCs and THEN divide by 4. He doesn't understand that concept at all and just blankly states that it would make encounters "too easy".

 

[Dire Bare]

Rules are not set in stone and are always up to GM interpretation and fiat.

I feel "entitled" to follow the rules when I'm playing D&D! The rules are a common baseline we can/should all be comfortable with, unless the DM announces he is purposely running a game with a modified or alternate ruleset.

I've dropped into too many games of "D&D" where the DM didn't understand the rules (more willful ignorance rather than simple inexperience) and claimed a "3rd Edition" game or a "4th Edition" game, when really it wasn't. Highly annoying.

If I was playing with this guy, well, I wouldn't. Life's too short for crappy DMing! He's not altering the rules because he's designed a "better way", he's altering the rules because he doesn't understand them. To properly break rules, you must understand them first!